


Something Like Hope

by Esta Camille Lupin (edye327)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nobody knows, What am I doing, fetus newtina, kid newtina, newtina, newtina angst, newtina au, newtina comfort, newtina drabble, newtina flangst, newtina fluff, newtina hurt, newtina hurt/comfort, they're cute kids ok, tw divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10434936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edye327/pseuds/Esta%20Camille%20Lupin
Summary: Newt's parents divorce when he's eight. Tina helps him through it.Based on "Love Song" by Five For Fighting





	

**Author's Note:**

> DON’T ASK ME WHY I WROTE THIS BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW
> 
> I've recently been experimenting with shorter pieces and working them around songs has proven to be helpful. So. Just putting this out there, if anyone’s interested.
> 
> The song itself is about divorce from the POV of John Ondrasik’s neighbor (I got to interview him for an English paper, which was awesome). And I just thought of fetus Newtina comfort, and this happened. But there's definitely a happy ending!

_ Put away your tears and your sleepy eyes. _

_ Put away your bullshit. _

_ Big Boys they don't cry to their mammas. _

_ She'll be back soon. _

Newt is eight years old when his parents divorce.

Theseus, already a middle schooler, accepts it with the mature solemnity of a boy who has a basic understanding of life and love, enough to know that sometimes things don’t work out.

Newt cries.

“Big boys don’t cry,” his father chides him when he discovers a teary, exhausted Newt the morning after his mother slams the door and leaves. “Up you get. She’ll be back soon.”

**~*~**

_ Put away your rain coat and make your bed. _

_ Take another bullet right to your head now. _

_ We're going on a picnic _

_ and we'll get there soon. _

It rains for three days straight. Newt’s mother is still around, apologetic and subdued. She kisses him goodnight and forgets to sing him their song. She doesn’t tell him to make his bed anymore; Newt tests her, just to see.

“Put away your rain coat and make your bed,” Newt’s father says finally, when the sun comes out. “We’re going on a picnic.”

Newt would rather take a bullet to his head.

**~*~**

_ And she says maybe it's over. _

_ And he says, there's plenty more fish in the sea _

_ But I say, don't go away...from me.  _

The doorbell rings right as Tina is sitting down to do her math homework. She peers out of the window and glimpses a familiar head of unruly auburn curls. Heart leaping, she bounds down the stairs and throws open the door.

It’s only when she sees Newt’s face that she realizes something isn’t right.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. He hasn’t been in class all week. “Are you sick?”

He shakes his head, looking lost. “They’re leaving me,” he whispers.

Seraphina, Tina’s best friend, said the same exact thing to her two weeks ago. “They’re getting a divorce,” Tina surmises.

Newt nods miserably.

“Well, come in,” Tina says, figuring some sort of remedy is in order. She takes him by the hand and leads him into the kitchen. “Mom’s on a business call.”

“At least you still have a mom,” Newt says morosely.

Tina casts him a scornful look; she knows him well enough to know that he's above such dramas. “You still have a mom, Newt. What d’you want?” She gestures to the cupboard, filled with snacks.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Oreos then.” Tina knows Oreos are his favorite — he brought them the first day they ate lunch together in kindergarten. They argued over the best way to eat the cookies (Newt carefully deconstructs each one, which Tina finds entirely pointless) and ended up friends.  

Newt comes to Tina’s aid now when the milk jug is too heavy. The couple only spills a very little bit on the counter, which Tina hastily wipes up with a soggy paper towel. Then they go onto the back porch and sit on the swinging bench, nursing cool glasses of milk and sharing an entire sleeve of Oreos. 

“You know what my mom told Queenie?” Tina pipes up.

Newt looks at her dolefully. “What?”

“That boy she liked, he stopped liking her. Mom said there’s plenty more fish in the sea.”

“What does that mean?”

Tina frowns. “I guess... both your parents will find someone new.”

Newt is horrified. “I don’t want them to find someone new.”

That was probably a bad call on her part. Tina, unsure what to do from here, scoots over and puts her arm around him. “It’ll be okay,” she says, squeezing.

For an instant, Newt believes her.

**~*~**

_ So put away your dinner and have a snack. _

_ Tie your little brother up in a sack. _

_ We're moving to the country _

_ And we'll get there soon.  _

It’s decided that the boys’ father will get them during the week. Theseus is happy with the arrangement. Newt is not. It’s also decided that they’re going to move 40 minutes out to the country. Nobody is very happy about that, except perhaps the boys’ mom, who says that seeing her ex husband's face makes her sick. Their little brother gets tossed into a sleep sack in the back of the car as Newt and Theseus climb in.

“We’ll get there soon,” Newt’s father says bracingly.

Newt stares out the window and misses Tina.

**~*~**

_ Pack up all the things that you don't deserve. _

_ Take another swing, well here comes a curve ball. _

_ I betcha can't hit it _

_ Cause you'll swing too soon.  _

They play baseball in the new backyard. There’s more room, rolling hills, and everyone at the new school has a white smile and good manners. Newt sees his mother every weekend as promised, but it isn’t the same. His dad wants him to be a little league baseball champion like Theseus. Newt can’t think of anything worse.

“Bet you can’t hit it,” his father says in an attempt to motivate his son.

“You swing too soon,” Theseus offers kind brotherly advice.

Newt throws the baseball bat on the ground and walks away.

**~*~**

_ And she says maybe it's over. _

_ And he says, there's plenty more fish in the sea. _

_ But I say, Don't go away... _

_ Don't go away... _

_ Please don't go away...from me  _

During the weekends, Newt goes to Tina’s house. It’s a refuge, and he starts to look forward to that more than seeing his own mother. Every time, Tina makes him a snack — Oreos and milk, Ritz crackers and peanut butter, Triscuits and string cheese — and they sit on the porch swing or in the hammock. Newt likes to listen to her chatter on about school and mean girls and all the things she’s learning.

“I’m gonna be a policewoman,” she tells him confidently one day. 

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have policing me,” he replies.

Tina beams. “What do you wanna be?” she asks.

Newt hasn’t thought about it before. “Wanted,” he decides. “I wanna be wanted.”

Tina, who had been hanging upside down, leaps up to face him. “You are wanted,” she says firmly.

He shrugs helplessly. “Not by my parents. I asked them not to go away, but they did. Both of them.”

There’s a pause while Tina tries to come up with a suitable response. “Well, you’re wanted by me,” she says finally. Much to Newt’s surprise, she leans over and pecks him on the cheek, then gets to her feet and takes his hand, pulling him in the direction of the monkey bars. “Come on.”

For the first time, Newt smiles the entire way back to his dad’s.

**~*~**

_ But can you take it to heart... _

_ I'll never leave...  _

Six months pass and Newt is still hurting. But Tina helps.

“One, two, three, four, I declare a seat drop war!” Tina and Newt shout, jumping on the trampoline. “Five, six, seven, eight, now it’s time to concentrate!”

“Could you be quiet?” Queenie, a temperamental teenager currently interested in lip gloss and Taylor Swift, complains through the window.

“No!” Tina yells, and both she and Newt dissolve into giggles. “Ha! I win!” she preens when he loses his balance.

“Nuh-uh!” he retorts, and begins chasing her around and around in circles until they both fall onto their backs, gazing up at the blue sky and catching their breath. A sudden wave of emotion washes over Newt; these moments with his friend are his only escape from a miserable reality, but even in Tina’s presence he sometimes remembers that his parents are divorced, that he isn’t wanted.

Tina can read his mind. “I’ll never leave,” she promises, and holds his hand for a long time.

**~*~**

_ So take those damn pictures off of that shelf. _

_ Put away your mommy. You don't need her. _

_ I found you a new one. _

_ And she'll be here soon.  _

Newt’s father gets angry when he finds the old family pictures nestled in between science fair awards on Newt’s bookshelf.

“Put them away,” he says gruffly, and tosses them in the trash. “You don’t need her.”

“We have a new mom,” Theseus informs Newt on the bus ride home.

Newt’s stomach sinks like a stone. “What?”

Theseus nods. “She’s nice.”

“You already met her?”

“Mm-hm.” Then Theseus tosses a baseball at his friend and forgets all about his little brother.

That evening, Newt runs away and hides in the woods until the police come to track him down.

**~*~**

_ And she says, My God it's over. _

_ And he says, I found another fish in the sea  _

“It’s over,” Newt’s mom says resolutely when Newt asks if she would be okay with Dad moving back home, even if they’re in separate houses. “He found someone else anyway.”

Newt is crestfallen. He doesn’t eat dinner and goes straight to Tina’s house instead. Queenie answers the door; a smirk crosses her face when she sees who it is. “Hi, honey,” she says warmly, looking down at him. Then she turns around and calls, “Teen! Your boyfriend’s here!”

“Coming!” Tina yells back, taking the stairs two at a time. Newt notices that she doesn’t correct her sister’s joke. “Hi,” she says breathlessly, landing in front of him. They’ve both gotten taller; it’s been nearly a year since the divorce and since they started spending every weekend together. Newt thinks Tina looks very pretty.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Queenie says, and winks at him.

“Dad found someone else,” Newt tells Tina as she busies herself in the kitchen.

“I know,” she says, and climbs onto a stool so she can reach the top cupboard. “But you still got your mom. You still got both of them.”

“It isn’t the same,” Newt laments. 

Tina hops off the stool, Cheezits in hand. “I’m still here,” she reminds Newt. “I won’t find someone else.” Then she grabs a large bowl, two flashlights, and scampers into the garage. “When d’you need to be home?”

“I don’t know,” Newt answers.

“Hold this.” The bowl and snacks are thrust into his hands as Tina, one flashlight held between her teeth and the other dangling from a strap around her wrist, rummages around until she finds an old tent.

They end up playing flashlight tag, ransacking the candy drawer, and lying down inside the tent, safe from mosquitoes, while they stargaze and Newt names all the constellations. When Newt’s mother comes around, not overly concerned about his absence knowing that he’s at the Goldsteins’, Tina gives Newt a big hug before he leaves.

“You two are certainly thick as thieves,” his mother comments as they head back down the street.

“She said she wouldn’t find someone else,” Newt states.

“Of course she wouldn’t, sweetheart.” His mother ruffles up his hair affectionately. “You’re her best friend.”

_ Best friend.  _ Newt likes the sound of that.

**~*~**

_ But I say, why me...why me _

_ why...is it me? _

Newt fights to stay with his mom during high school. Theseus is in college, his step-mother is dreadful, and he wants to be closer to Tina. Although his father is enraged, Newt eventually wins the battle and moves back to his old town just in time to start freshman year with his old friends.

The questions surrounding his parents’ divorce still beg themselves. Why him? Was it something he did wrong as a little kid, to make his parents split up like that?  _ Was _ it him?

School distracts him, though. He gets serious in the science fair scene, promising scholarships looming on the horizon. Tina — a straight-A student herself — accompanies Newt to every conference, beaming in the front row when he wins. She still holds his hand occasionally, helps him through bouts of anxiety, and doesn't seem to like any other boys.

Theseus is majoring in criminal justice and talks to Tina about it over Thanksgiving dinner. Newt gets a bit prematurely anxious about his best friend throwing herself into danger, but that's years away. Queenie interrogates him more than once about his feelings for her little sister; he pleads the fifth. 

Tina kisses Newt in eleventh grade. He panics, because all he’s ever known about love is that it ends.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tina promises, wrapping her arms around him.

“Why do you like me?” he asks in reply, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“Because it’s you,” she responds frankly. “It’s always been you.”

And something like hope blooms in Newt’s chest.

**~*~**


End file.
